MobileCrunch |  |
- Nokia Closes Online Doors, Swears Shutdown Is Unrelated To Poor Sales
- Lawmakers Get Involved In “Locationgate,” Propose Data Privacy Law
- Verizon Extends Mobile Hotspot Promo For 4G LTE Smartphones To July 6
- T-Mobile Confirms June 22nd Launch For Exhibit 4G and Gravity SMART
- Rumor: Google’s Next Nexus To Be The “Nexus 4G?”
- Starbucks Now Lets You Pay For Coffee With Your Android Phone
- T-Mobile Releases HTC Sensation 4G, And Kind Of Releases The Samsung Dart
| Nokia Closes Online Doors, Swears Shutdown Is Unrelated To Poor Sales Posted: 15 Jun 2011 03:13 PM PDT
Poor Nokia. It seems like just yesterday that everyone around me was sporting some form of a Nokia handset. Now, I literally don't know one person who owns a Nokia phone, at least not as a primary handset. The company that once ruled the world, or at least the mobile world, has now fallen to third place behind Samsung and Apple, and it looks as though things are only getting worse. Apparently, the Finnish company is closing the doors of its online stores in the UK, Spain, and France. Nokia pledges that the shuttering sites have nothing to do with slow sales, but rather that the manufacturer would like to start selling handsets to carriers instead of selling to end users directly. Overall, it's not a bad idea, seeing how carriers can offer subsidies that lock users into contracts. Although, it probably won't make much of a difference unless Nokia has some better phones to sell in the first place, which won't happen until the company slaps Mango onto one of its handsets and gets the ball rolling. [via Phone Arena]
|
| Lawmakers Get Involved In “Locationgate,” Propose Data Privacy Law Posted: 15 Jun 2011 03:10 PM PDT
The "Locationgate" scandal that saw so much coverage back in April hasn't been in the news much lately, but that hasn't stopped lawmakers from trying to prevent similar situations. Two senators, Al Franken of Minnesota and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have proposed a mobile privacy bill today hoping to strengthen the level of consent needed for app developers and device makers to collect and share location data. In case you've been living under a rock (in a location already stored on your phone, no doubt), it all started when two researchers in Britain discovered that Apple's iPhone and iPad had been recording location data, and storing it on the device. This had people up in arms, of course, and it was only a matter of time until Google was discovered to be doing the same thing. Since then, people have been pretty peeved about it, so much so that the long arm of the law is getting involved. According to the senators, the bill "would close loopholes in current federal law to ensure that consumers know what location information is being collected [...] and allow them to decide if they want to share it." Of course, without location data, services like Yelp!, Fandango, and Google Maps (obviously), would be almost worthless, or at least no better than their desktop counterparts. Franken agreed to an extent, but said that "the same information that allows emergency responders to locate us when we're in trouble is not necessarily information all of us want to share with the rest of the world. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, this isn't Franken's first go-around on the issue. Just last month, the senator held a hearing to grill Google's director of public policy Alan Davidson and Apple VP Guy L. Tribble over the matter. As expected, both Google and Apple defended their data gathering practices, pointing fingers at third-party app makers over which they have no control. Tribble added that the information tracked on iPhones is not necessarily the user's pin-pointed location. It's actually the locations of Wi-Fi network routers and cell towers connecting to the device that provide Apple's location data. "I find that confusing," responded Franken. Davidson of Google then went on to explain how Android devices only collect location data after the user has given consent. He added that the data sent back to Google servers is not tied in any way to specific users. [via CNN]
|
| Verizon Extends Mobile Hotspot Promo For 4G LTE Smartphones To July 6 Posted: 15 Jun 2011 11:05 AM PDT
Remember that free mobile hotspot promotion Verizon Wireless had going for the HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung Droid Charge and the LG Revolution? Looks like the big red carrier has decided to make the fun last a little longer. We had expected the promo to end today, but for the second time, Verizon's decided to let the hotspot love flow freely. On July 6, however, all three handsets will get an update which is supposed to get rid of the mobile hotspot. After that, there's no telling what the hotspot feature will cost, but Verizon did mention that the $20/GB plan does not extend to any 4G LTE smartphones. [via MobileBurn]
|
| T-Mobile Confirms June 22nd Launch For Exhibit 4G and Gravity SMART Posted: 15 Jun 2011 10:39 AM PDT
Sure enough, T-mo has just taken to Twitter to drop the confirmation: come June 22nd, they’ll be puttin both the somewhat-high-end (we’d say “lower high end”, but that seems confusing) Exhibit 4G and the lower-end Gravity SMART on their shelves. Need a recap on the specs of the Exhibit 4G or the Gravity Smart? Peek behind the jump.
Exhibit 4G Specs:
Gravity SMART Specs:
|
| Rumor: Google’s Next Nexus To Be The “Nexus 4G?” Posted: 15 Jun 2011 10:26 AM PDT
Of course, Google then went on to launch the Nexus S — and things only got better with the launch of the Sprint Nexus S 4G a few weeks ago. But what's next? According to BGR, “what’s next” is tentatively called the “Nexus 4G”. So says their source, the Nexus 4G will feature a dual-core chipset clocked at either 1.2 Ghz (much like HTC‘s Sensation 4G) or 1.5 Ghz. BGR’s source squashed rumors that the phone would come with an Nvidia Kal-El processor. Instead, the source believes that an OMAP 4460 or a 28nm Krait-based Snapdragon are much more likely candidates. The source also mentioned a 720p HD "monster-sized" display, and said that this next model will scrap those physical Android menu buttons in favor of a software-only experience a la Honeycomb Tablets. Other purported specs include a 4G radio of some sort (WiMax? LTE? Who knows!), 1GB of RAM, a 1-megapixel front-facing shooter and a 5-megapixel rear camera with 1080p HD video capture and playback. Oh, and that 5-megapixel camera I just mentioned: it's supposed to be an advanced 5-megapixel sensor, said to deliver “class-leading image quality”, along with high-quality low-light performance. Here's the best part: The "Nexus 4G" is said to be the reference device for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. According to the source, Google hopes to make the phone available by Thanksgiving. [via BGR]
|
| Starbucks Now Lets You Pay For Coffee With Your Android Phone Posted: 15 Jun 2011 09:27 AM PDT
Now, imagine if you paid for that order with your Android phone. BOOM, love butterflies would pretty much fly out of her face. Too bad you can only use your mobile to pay at Starbucks if you’ve got an iPhone or BlackBerry, right? Not anymore! This morning, Starbucks launched the Android port of their much-lauded pay-with-your-phone app. As with the other ports, you just pop into a Starbucks to buy a gift card, punch the gift card’s details into your phone, and said gift card then lives as a You can find the new Starbucks Android app on the market right here. (Of course, they could’ve been awesomely cutting edge and nixed the whole silly gift card thing if they’d just gone with Square Register, but that’s probably not going to happen)
|
| T-Mobile Releases HTC Sensation 4G, And Kind Of Releases The Samsung Dart Posted: 15 Jun 2011 09:18 AM PDT
Two new Android smartphones hit T-Mo shelves today, the highly anticipated HTC Sensation 4G and the Samsung Dart, or what our friends from across the pond would call the Galaxy Mini S5570. That's the good news. The bad news is that both devices are listed as "temporarily out of stock" on the T-Mobile web site. I called around to a couple different T-Mo locations in the area to check if the same problem holds true at the brick-and-mortar stores. Apparently, the Sensation 4G is still available, at least at the stores I called. The mystery, however, lies in the Samsung Dart. The first few places I called didn't seem to know what the Dart was, and claimed to have not even been trained for the handset. After I got on the phone with a manager, he said that yes, the Dart is launching today, but not all retail locations have received the shipment. Basically, if you've been waiting for the Galaxy Mini variant, looks like you'll be waiting a bit longer. If you don't know already, the HTC Sensation 4G is probably the best smartphone T-Mobile has ever carried. It packs Android 2.3 Gingerbread goodness in with HTC's gorgeous Sense 3.0 UI, all powered by a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor with a 8-megapixel camera on the back. There's just one catch, and at this point, it may be a non-existent one. Back in the UK, where the Sensation originally launched, users experienced the same "death grip" type issues we saw with the iPhone 4 a while back. T-Mobile's model may have evaded that dilemma, but it's worth considering before laying out the cash. The Sensation 4G will cost $199.99 on contract, or $549 off contract. The Samsung Dart, on the other hand, is free with a contract, or $179.99 without, and comes loaded with Android 2.2 Froyo, a QVGA touchscreen display, a 600MHz processor, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Now all you have to do is find a store with a shipment. [via Unwired View]
|
When then-Google boss Eric Schmidt said that the 
Maaaan, this Barista chick already thinks you’re awesome. I mean, you ordered a “skinny half-caf quad-shot light ice dopio espresso with room for cream.” With that many words in your order, how can you not be awesome?
| You are subscribed to email updates from MobileCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment